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| Fr. Hewko's Statement concerning the 'Consecration' of Fr. Joseph Pfeiffer |
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Posted by: Stone - 12-14-2020, 07:49 AM - Forum: "Bishop" Joseph Pfeiffer
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STATEMENT OF FR. DAVID HEWKO, JULY 30, 2020
CONCERNING KENTUCKY CONSECRATION OF FR. JOSEPH PFEIFFER
“Then Jesus saith to them: All you shall be scandalized in Me this night. For it is written: ‘I will strike
the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock shall be dispersed.’” (St. Matthew 26:31)
This is a brief Statement denouncing the consecration of Fr. Joseph Pfeiffer by “Bishop” Neal Webster. This is a scandal for Holy Mother Church, the true Catholic Resistance and for the vocations at OLMC in Boston, Kentucky.
Let it be known that Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre would absolutely condemn this action and express, once again, the doubtfulness of the Thuc line of bishops, let alone any connection with Palmar de Troya in Spain, who have elected their own pope decades ago.
Let it be known that the priestly line of “Bishop” Webster is from: Bishop Thuc, to Clemente ("Pope" Gregory XVII!), Terrason, Hennenberry, to Webster.
The episcopal lineage is from: Bishop Thuc to Des Lauries to McKenna to Slupski to Webster.
“Bishop” Neal Webster is also a public supporter of the Feeneyite position on the denial of the Baptism of Blood and Desire (“Votum”), which contradicts the constant Magisterium of the Church.
Once again, let us beg Our Lady of the Holy Rosary to crush the Church’s enemies. Let us hold the clear position of Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre always faithful to Mother Church, her Traditional Magisterium, the Traditional Sacraments and the categorical refusal of doubtful sacraments and dangers to the Faith!
Once again, we see the sad casualties of a Pope and hierarchy failing in their duty! Indeed, when the shepherd is struck the sheep scatter!
In Christ the King,
Fr. David Hewko
+ + +
Frs. Hewko and Ruiz - Regarding the Kentucky "Consecration" of Fr. Joseph Pfeiffer
Followed by texts on the Thuc line
Listen to these true sons of Archbishop Lefebvre and Holy Mother Church! Deo gratias!
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| Archbishop Lefebvre: 1987 Conference - On Conformity to God's Will |
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Posted by: Stone - 12-14-2020, 07:44 AM - Forum: Sermons and Conferences
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July 1987 Angelus
In Conformity to God's Will
We present to you this beautiful Conference of Archbishop Lefebvre, which he gave to the priests of the District of France, at St. Nicholas du Chardonnet, Paris, 13 December 1984. Though it is addressed to priests, we thought it of great value for the laity. It reveals the spirit in which His Excellency has trained his priests; the lessons on our dependence upon God are valuable for all Catholics; and the necessity of preserving the Faith is also well stressed!
I am very happy to be able to meet with you on the occasion of a meeting of the District of France, and I have to admit to you that I am also encouraged by this. It is a great satisfaction for me to report that, fourteen years from the foundation of the Society, its organization, its purpose—particularly sacerdotal—of forming priests shaped in the spirit of Our Lord, in the spirit of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass—is finding its realization in the ministry, in the practice of the priestly life that you lead now, each one, in your place, in your function, in the mission assigned to you, and that thanks to this spirit that you have received, and that you hold on to and keep holding on to, you are profiting from an organization, a framework, a support from these meetings, thanks to the District, which shows also your concern to keep up and to perfect your desire for holiness. This is our outstanding importance.
You see, I think that if difficulties have arisen, which we know, in the priesthood, and in the sphere of secular priests in particular, since the Council, and these difficulties have been a painful verification of something that was lacking in the formation of these priests, it is without doubt that they had lost at the same time the true notion of the priesthood in which they were clothed, and that they had not taken the means of keeping this desire to maintain their faith and their fervor. Of course there were meetings in the dioceses, there were contacts between priests; but they were very formal contacts, unfortunately very administrative and not truly pastoral, and not made in a spirit of prayer, in a spirit of piety.
I think, then, that in meetings like these you find yourselves with the desire to examine together your cares as pastors, in order to find a better way to fulfill your apostolate and at the same time to pray together so that the graces of the Good Lord help you to accomplish this apostolate and to keep yourselves in fervor, in piety, in holiness. I think that this is a very beautiful and consoling thing which certainly should please God. You should be able to verify yourselves that in the way of this fervor, this desire of holiness and of perfection, there are some obstacles which perhaps you did not suspect when you left the seminary.
There can obviously be many of these…at first a certain weariness; there are those who are nearing ten years in the priesthood, there are some who have passed this, but ten years….Then there can be a kind of weariness, a type of familiarity, a certain habit, I would say, which brings it about that assueta vilescunt: what a person has done in a habitual manner winds up by not having any more embossment, not having any more value in a way. It becomes a sort of automatism, so that you can have here an obstacle.
There can likewise be a disappearance of sensible fervor, sensible consolations, in the union with God, in the ministry, in the accomplishment of the sacred acts that we have to accomplish each day.
There can also be a certain lack of success in the apostolate. One was hoping that the apostolate that he would have to do would have produced fruits much more important, much more numerous, much more profound; and after a few years, he realizes that it is very limited, it is not as deep as he had wanted—souls are not being sanctified as quickly and as perfectly as he had hoped. Then perhaps a certain disillusionment could lead to a kind of apathy, a certain lukewarmness in the accomplishment of the apostolate, in the exercise of the priesthood.
There are difficulties too in the daily life, in the organization of your daily life. When leaving the seminary, you had hoped to be able to have your time for prayer absolutely respected; not only respected but perhaps even able to add to it another half-hour now and then, finally a little more contemplation, a little more means of union with God. And lo, not only can you not add anything, you have often to shorten it! You are taken right and left by the demands of the faithful, by the necessities of organization and the apostolate; then the fact of seeing this life of prayer and this community life very often difficult to bring about can also become an obstacle to your sanctification and the cause of a certain uneasiness. You say to yourself, "But if I continue like this, where am I going to get to? What will be the result in four years, five years, six years, if I continue to live with so little possibility of collecting my thoughts, and of really leading a life of prayer and of union with God?"
Then some suggestions come, which can be as well from the Holy Ghost as from the demon: "Oh, maybe I would do better to go into a contemplative congregation; perhaps I had better ask for another position, change, go somewhere else, to an assignment less important, less mixed up with the world; find something, and at least be a little in the country, not in the city!" Oh yes, there are temptations like those. Personally I think that they come more from the devil than from the Holy Ghost. And then there are other trials, for example, changes of assignment. On the contrary, you were comfortable in that place, you thought that there, "I could really actualize my priestly life, my little program of life that I had made and planned during my seminary days. I found that it was good, I had a regular life, a community life that was rather pleasant; my brother priest and I understood each other, in short my apostolate was not too absorbing and as a result allowed me to have a priestly life such as I had dreamed of while in the seminary. But now I have been stationed somewhere that does not please me at all. I am not used to this kind of apostolate, and I will certainly have difficulties in realizing my priestly ideal such as I have anticipated it, etc."
Then you feel your heart being upset, your mind also; and it is a trial. And then it is another great trial that we all suffer: the trial of the Church, because we finally have to recognize it, the exterior situation and in a certain way the juridical situation(at last juridical in the sense of purely literal law), well, now it is not normal, that is true. Thus we are not in a normal relation with the bishops, with the priests who are around us and who also have an apostolate—what apostolate?—but in the end, they are priests who are still in the parishes; the relations with them are obviously not the relations which we normally should have had in the holy Church. So, no normal relations with the bishops, no normal relations with the priests who are around us, no normal relations with men religious or sisters, with a good part of the faithful, with Rome itself. It is an appalling, horrible trial, because it is abnormal. But the anomaly does not come from us. It is from them that it comes, from all those who have not followed the Tradition of the Church, who have themselves put themselves permanently outside all legality, outside the Faith, yes—even outside the Faith! But however it may be, we are convinced of this, it is they who are wrong, who have changed course, who have broken with the Tradition of the Church, who have rushed into novelties, we are convinced of this. That is why we do not rejoin them and why we cannot work with them; we cannot collaborate with the people who depart from the spirit of the Church, from the Tradition of the Church. But that puts us in a very critical situation of breaking with that mass of Church people who are departing from the Tradition of the Church. That makes thus for an unlikely situation, assuredly unbelievable, that is at times for us a cause for sorrow, for a desire to see the Church rediscover her way, that is to say, her Tradition—at least not the Church, but the people of the Church—for a desire that the Church not be torn anymore as it is right now, and finally that her passion in some way end.
Thus there are so many obstacles to our sanctification, to our union with God, to our serenity, to our peace in the apostolate, in the work which we have to do. So what should be the deep remedy, the essential remedy? You see, I think that if you take a glance at the history of the Church—the history of the Church is a great teacher, a teacher of truth—well, what is the spirit in which all those people worked who sanctified the Church, the world, who have been apostles? The fundamental idea, the essential idea of the Christian, of him who has the Faith, but also very simply of the wise man, of the sensible man, of the man who has the wisdom of philosophy and theology, this directing idea is dependence upon God, to live in dependence upon God. I believe that it is that that separates us from all those who do not want to live in dependence upon God, to live in total, complete, entire, perfect dependence upon God. We always have to come back to this fundamental principle, essential principle, in the light of faith.
The light of faith teaches us first of all this: I am nothing, not any thing, I am nothing without God! I cannot do anything without God. I possess all from God, I possess all from Our Lord Jesus Christ, who is God. The fundamental conviction, the basic disposition is there: recognition of our nothingness before God and of our continual dependence with respect to God in our existence and in our activity.
The Faith teaches me next that I am a sinner, that I am a sick person, very sick. Even after the grace of baptism, I am always very sick, I am blind. I am tempted not to give to God what is due Him and not to give my neighbor what is due him. I am weak and in short I have the love of the things of the earth, I am tempted by the love of the things of here below: those are the four great sicknesses of which St. Thomas speaks to us and which form this fames peccati, this tendency towards sin that we have in us, even after the grace of baptism. We should never forget that, we should preach it to the people and say to them: "You are sick people." And therefore we have need of a Doctor. We have need all the time of being redeemed by the blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ. The hour of redemption is not ended for us personally; it continues.
The Faith then teaches us that we cannot do anything that is meritorious without the grace of Our Lord Jesus Christ; without the blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ everything that we do is worth nothing. That is what St. Paul says when he speaks of charity, which is nothing but the grace of Our Lord Jesus Christ, of His blood: "Even if I gave my body to be burned, even if I gave everything that I am, even if I gave myself entirely for any purpose whatever that could appear to be a charity, all that does nothing for me." Nothing, no merit; that does not merit heaven for us, because there is no love of God, because there is no charity of Our Lord Jesus Christ in us.
Then behold the real state in which we are, behold the state that all the wisdom of philosophy and theology teaches us: on the one hand, the wisdom of philosophy teaches us that we are nothing, that we depend totally on God. Let us read, let us re-read our theodicea and the conclusions are there, irresistible, of an unappeasable logic: man is nothing, is nothing. He is constantly in the hands of God. So now let us not believe that we can do anything by ourselves; we can do nothing. On the other hand, theology teaches us that we are sinners, that Jesus came to redeem us, that He shed His blood on the Cross, and that without Him we can do nothing to gain heaven. Nothing, nothing!
So we are really in a state of dependence: dependence in our existence, dependence in our salvation.And it is this dependence which characterizes Christian civilization. The Christian civilization of ten centuries has been characterized by this dependence upon God, dependence of the clergy, dependence of the kings, of families, of individuals: all was under submission to God. At least that was the principle; the principle was there; and if obviously sin was certainly everywhere, at least in principle all depended upon God, all depended upon Our Lord Jesus Christ. Our Lord Jesus Christ was truly King—the King accepted officially, publicly, by everyone, by the whole of society, publicly! Then there was this dependence, this spirit of dependence, of simplicity, of discretion, of humility in the homes, in the families, vocations in considerable numbers, because the people felt the need of going to the Doctor of Souls, of going to Our Lord Jesus Christ, of being dependent upon Our Lord Jesus Christ. There was this constant summons in the souls.
Now this dependence stirs up in us the desire precisely to set up the Kingdom of Our Lord Jesus Christ everywhere. "Instaurare omnia in Christo—to restore all things in Christ," this is indeed the motto of our Saint Pius X. "Recapitulare omnia in Christo—to recapitulate all things in Christ": this is still another term, an expression from the Holy Scriptures, of St. Paul: "recapitulare," a magnificent term! In Greek, "ανακεφαλαιωσασ θαι": all is brought back to the head, which is Our Lord Jesus Christ; nothing apart from Him! Of that, we have to be convinced, truly convinced. I think that we should often meditate on that, that it be truly the object, I would say almost the main object, of our meditations, because it is the principal reality.
It is the great reality, it is the reality which will be laid bare in heaven for us. I think that that is what is going to strike us at the moment of our death: "I did not know that I was so dependent on God, that all depended on Our Lord Jesus Christ for my salvation; I did not realize that; now I discover, I discover the reality, I discover that God is all, that Our Lord Jesus Christ is all for my salvation, He is all for my redemption." And we will regret at that moment that we did not spend our lives in this total dependence on God, in this total dependence on Our Lord Jesus Christ for our salvation and for the salvation of souls.
Thus we should think about this not only for ourselves, but also for others, in our actions, in our apostolate. Our apostolate should not have any goal other than putting people into this dependence, saying to them: "O, but listen! Meditate on God; you can do nothing without God, so think of God, pray to Him, unite yourselves to Him. You can do nothing without Our Lord Jesus Christ, so think of Him! You will not be able to have the least merit for heaven without the Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ, without His charity, without His grace." "Nihil mihi prodest," this is the conclusion of St. Paul. It will not help me at all that I give my body to be burned for any love whatever, if it is not by charity. If I do not have charity, true charity, "nihil mihi prodest": that does me no good at all. And Our Lord Jesus Christ repeated it: "You can do nothing without Me." "Nihil": nothing! "Sine me nihil potestis facere," nothing! It is clear, it is plain. We have to be so convinced of this that, in our apostolate, we will be in this complete dependence upon God. That is very important because, you see, you are all full of zeal, you have only one desire—to convert all the people around you, to bring them all back to Our Lord, certainly. But there can be a great part of zeal that is purely human, zeal that is completely natural; take care!
Why? For my part, I will soon have been a priest sixty years. I see that I have also been, surely, perhaps in my zeal—I recognize it—sometimes more human than supernatural. Thus, by dint of reflection and prayers, it seems to me that now, and as the Society has been brought into being,I have always followed Providence; I do not want to anticipate it. I think that it is a great danger to want to anticipate Providence, to say, "Well, as for me, I am going to do that, I am going to accomplish that, I have to do that, I absolutely have to do that." Then one dashes recklessly, with all the zeal that he can have, to accomplish things; and he does not say sufficiently to himself, "Does the Good Lord want this? It is that the Good Lord wants? Does He want it at that moment? Does He want it in that manner? Does He will it with that quickness? In that time? Does He not want me to think a little more on it or even wait a little, in order that it be His will more than mine; because if I do my will, I run the risk of not doing God's will or of not doing God's will as the Good Lord wants it." And then later we should not be surprised that God's will is not brought about as well as we wished.
On the contrary, if truly at the moment when we accomplish such and such an objective of our apostolate, in the full measure in which it is possible for us to realize it, we can say, "I believe very sincerely that it is the moment, that the moment has come; the Good Lord wants me to do that, everything shows me objectively that it is the Good Lord's will: my superiors are not opposed; on the contrary, they are encouraging me, the Church encourages me, my Faith encourages me. Objectively I believe it is the will of the Good Lord that I do that," then there is a full guarantee that my undertaking is of God. Otherwise it comes from subjectivism: you end by persuading yourself that the desire you have is truly the desire of the Good Lord. But all the same, be careful! That has to be objectively true. There have to be objective proofs of this will of God and not only subjective proofs. That is to say, "I think that I am doing God's will," in such a way that they will wind up being opposed to the superior, saying, "My superior does not understand; it is no use talking to him, he does not comprehend." He does not comprehend? Certainly! It is not the Good Lord's will that you want to do, it is your will! Now the Good Lord's will comes through the superiors, if it is clear that evidently they are not openly opposing things of Faith, as unfortunately we are witnessing nowadays in the Church. Therefore you have a danger there, you see. I believe that this subjectivism is, precisely, Protestantism. Let us take care!
Protestants have the habit of acting like that. For them, their will, what is going on in their own interior being—the forging of their project—the movement of their will, is God speaking to them. Therefore, what the Good Lord wants is really their own wills. Look how dangerous that is. I have observed that sometimes with people converted from Protestantism, they keep the subjective idea that the Good Lord's will is their own will, and that consequently when they want something, it is the Good Lord Who wills it. Therefore when someone is opposed to this will, he is opposed to the will of the Good Lord. "If my superior is opposed to this will, he is opposed to the Good Lord's will and to providence." This is very serious. It is very easy to substitute one's will for the will of the Good Lord! Therefore pay close attention; that can be a defect, a defect that is natural to you, which is to want to make "my will" decisive. We think that we want to do the Good Lord's will, but, in fact, we do our own will. It is necessary really to have objective proofs, signs that it is truly the Good Lord's will. Now all the same, one of these signs is that at least the superior wills it! At least that the superior is not himself losing his way in a very evident manner from the truth and from objectivity. Therefore, the first sign is if the superior wills it.
Next we have to examine whether the external circumstances, outside ourselves, show this. Here are the circumstances that showed me that I should do something when I began the Society in Fribourg: I said to these gentlemen who positively wanted to push me to do something for the seminarians and who were asking me to take care of them. Well, I said to them, "I am going to see Bishop Charrière. I want to see the bishops I know. If the bishops say, 'Undertake it,' truly, I will see in that a sign of the Good Lord's will." And this was in spite of the fact that I did not have the desire to do so because I found that I was already aged and that I could not undertake a work of this type at my age. At age sixty-five, one no longer begins a work like that of the Society! I said, "Well, if Bishop Charrière really encourages me, then I have to plunge into it nonetheless, with the help of God's grace." And still I did not know what was going to happen afterwards. I certainly could not think that today I would be meeting with you fourteen years later with such a number of priests, and that the Society would be what it is now. If someone had said that to me, I would have smiled. That is why I say that it is the good Lord who has accomplished everything, it is not I; I did not want it even at that moment, but Bishop Charrière said to me, "You have to. Do it, do it. Take something, rent a house in town. Take care of your seminarians, do not abandon them. It is absolutely necessary for you know the situation of the Church now, on the situation in the seminaries; the good traditions absolutely have to be kept." He was completely in agreement, he encouraged me ardently. That was the objective sign that I should act; I believe that it was very important. I think that if I had said at that moment, "I want to begin a seminary, I want a seminary, and I will bring it about, because I think it will be useful, that the moment has come in the Church," but if I had not consulted, not asked, some bishops whom I knew, whose good dispositions I knew, the basic dispositions of a man of the Church, well, I do not think that the Society would have been brought into reality as it has been because it would have been a personal work, a work which perhaps would not have been blessed by God. Maybe it would have been good, but not blessed as it has been blessed by God.
So I think that in your apostolate it is the same thing. I give you this advice: see the objective, and not the subjective, will of God. Do not anticipate the will of Providence, but follow it. See when things really are ready; someone asks us to open a place here; someone says to you, "Oh, come, Father, you know there are many of us here; we would like you to come." Now you are already overburdened, so that rationally you should not do it because it is too much, that it is going to be too much. But there are some circumstances that come up, showing you some possible vocations; and then your superior comes, saying, "Perhaps that would be good." Very gently, the objective circumstances beyond your will—almost against your will—really push you to do something in this realm. So finally you make your decision. Well, that will be blessed by the Good Lord because it is not your personal will. It is really, objectively, the Good Lord who has shown you that it is His will to do that; and, even if your health has to suffer, well, the Good Lord will give you health. Have confidence, and if it is really the Good Lord who asks it of you, He will give you the means.
But if it is our will, it is much more dangerous; for then one is going to force things. Now he does not have the means to bring them about, or the means of health, or the means of organization of this apostolate. So this apostolate is going to end up probably by failing, and that will be worse, not better, because these people who had confidence are going to lose confidence. That is not working. Oh, he wanted to do his own will! It is not always like that, but there is a danger. I think that you really have to pay strict attention to that. You really have to be sure what is the Good Lord's will, even from the simple, material point of view. Without the material conditions, it is absolutely unthinkable to want to bring something about, when you do not have the means! It will be said, "But the Good Lord wants it"? "Because I feel that, because I feel that the Good Lord wants it." Who feels? Who feels that the Good Lord wants it? You—it is you who feel that; therefore it is your will finally that you want to do! "I am sure about that, I am sure." Who tells you that you are sure, show me the proofs! You do not have any! Good! You rush into it, but do you have the money to do it? "No, but St. Joseph will give it to me." It is not as certain as that! And then, all of a sudden, it is not working, it is not happening because you wanted to do your own will. Whereas if really all the objective circumstances, if everything convinces you that you should do it, then, in that case, yes. The Good Lord will give you what is necessary; the money will come if it is truly a necessary thing. If the Good Lord absolutely wills it, He will give the means. Therefore you have to be prudent; it is a question of prudence in the apostolate, but above all, it is a question of dependence upon the Good Lord.
This dependence upon the Good Lord is absolutely indispensable. If one no longer depends on the Good Lord, if one does not do that in total dependence, then it is no longer the Good Lord who acts through us. It will not be St. Paul's motto any more, "mihi vivere Christus est," it is Christ who acts in us. Therefore, it has to be He who acts, it does not have to be we. It is necessary that we be in dependence on Him, that we be an instrument, that we follow Him, that we have first of all the objective conviction that it is He who tells us, "Do that. You should do it." Then our desire will be precisely to put ourselves, by ourselves, into dependence upon God, to place the families there, to put souls there.
The souls that we will have to direct, to teach this dependence upon God, this dependence upon Our Lord Jesus Christ, by the sacraments, by the grace of the Good Lord, that is holiness. That is not sentiment, that is not because we feel full of fervor that we are truly charitable for so many. The test of charity is the accomplishment of the Good Lord's will. Therefore total dependence upon the Good Lord—that is charity. Our Lord Himself says, "You are My disciples if you fulfil My commandments. If you fulfil My commandments, We will come to you and will in you Our abode." It is very clear. It is dependence upon Our Lord Jesus Christ.
After this outline of our apostolate, of our interior life, of our behavior towards God, towards Our Lord, towards our apostolate, let us turn now to those who profess independence in regard to God. And we will see precisely that our current situation in the history of the Church, in the current epoch of the Church, is the true situation in which we should be and we should stay, because our adversaries are precisely those who proclaim independence and revolution against God and who wage war against all dependence on God, against all the laws of the Good Lord, against all the laws, supernatural and natural. They want to destroy everything. By the mere fact that something has been made by God, it is to be destroyed! The natural laws of marriage, all the natural laws even of simple material nature, even the ways of cultivating the earth, even the manners of behaving oneself everywhere, everything that recalls God, all that reminds us of a dependence upon God must be broken, must be changed. The revolution must be carried out in all domains: liberation—liberty! liberty! liberty!—to free oneself from God, to free oneself from dependence upon God in all domains, that is the revolution. Now that is the spirit of Satan. That is hell. Hell is independence in regard to God. "Non serviam!" "Nolimus hunc regnare super nos—we do not want this One to rule over us!" This is the cry of hell!
Then we see all that being brought about before our eyes: the struggle for the secular school, this is the struggle against God, against dependence upon God. All those bad laws that have been passed: abortion, contraception, divorce, are the destruction of the laws of God and, therefore, destruction of dependence upon God. Now, since Protestantism, and particularly since the French Revolution, we have been present at this war, now an open war, against dependence upon God, and particularly against dependence upon Our Lord Jesus Christ, since there is no other God than Our Lord Jesus Christ, in whom dwell the Father and the Holy Ghost. "He who does not have Jesus Christ," says St. John, "does not have the Father." This war inaugurated by the Jews and continuing through Freemasonry is directed by Satan, by all the means.
Now, we arrive at the betrayal, at the betrayal of Catholics by liberalism. The liberals are those who make compromises with those people, with those who proclaim liberty and independence from God, in the name of the "rights" of man. Indeed, religious liberty is none other than one of the articles of the Constitution of the Rights of Man, of the proclamation of the rights of man; and even ecumenism is only a consequence of religious liberty, of "equality," of the equality which ruins all of a nature such as the Good Lord has made it. We are born unequal. Beyond a doubt, we are equal by our nature, but the Good Lord has willed that we be unequal in our talents, in the abilities that He has given us for the organization of society, among ourselves, so that there be a Christian order, a Christian hierarchy. This inequality is basically in nature as intended by God; likewise private property, which necessarily gives rise to inequalities, is willed by God; all those things are willed by God; all those things are willed by God. Now liberalism makes a pact with the satanic ideas of the world, in revolt against God, and against all the laws that the Good Lord has made, natural and supernatural. Liberalism wants to join forces with those people and therefore admits these principles. So we who want to save and reorganize this dependence upon God and on Our Lord Jesus Christ in ourselves, around us, by the intercession of the Most Holy Virgin Mary, with the reign of the Most Holy Virgin Mary, well, we rebel against those who do not want dependence upon God, dependence upon Our Lord Jesus Christ, and against those who are ruining the dependence on Our Lord Jesus Christ.
Now this is what the men of the Church are doing right now! We see it before our eyes; it is clear, everywhere. Since the Council, liberalism has taken over the most important positions in the Church, from the Pope to the cardinals of Rome, down to the Curia. Liberalism has taken root in the Church; therefore the moral compromise of the men of the Church with the men of Satan—not an open agreement—no more struggle, no more struggle against Satan, no more war against those who proclaim independence in regard to God—that is finished. And this pact was signed openly on the occasion of the Council, publicly, with the Freemasons, with the Protestants, with the Communists. We were present at this marriage, at this adulterous, abominable union, between the men of the Church and the revolution and the ideas which go against God and Our Lord Jesus Christ, against His reign. This is abominable!
This has been proven recently, too, by the interview of Cardinal Ratzinger which was published in fourteen pages. A book is going to appear soon about this interview, which lasted several days. The person who conducted the interview is going to edit a book. I think that the phrase which is here reported by this person (it is a conversation with Cardinal Ratzinger) is certainly going to be reported there, in the book. It is of outstanding importance. If there are some very good things in the interview, there are some things radically wrong in Cardinal Ratzinger's words, which show us the seriousness of the present situation when you think that the Cardinal is all the same, he who is at the head of the Congregation called "For the Doctrine of the Faith." Unfortunately, it is no longer the Holy Office! Here is the phrase which is found on page 72 of the Italian magazine:
Quote:"Then, a little disturbed," I said to the Cardinal [said the person questioning him], "is the situation in the Church really going to be changed?"
"Yes." [The response is solemn.] "Yes, the problem of the 1960's was to obtain the best expressed values of two centuries of liberal culture. [So that was the problem of the 1960's!] And indeed, there are values which, even though they are born outside the Church [appalling, such foolishness: which are born outside the Church!], can find their place provided mat they be depurati et correcti [what does that mean?] in the vision that the Church has of the world. [This is appalling, appalling!] And that has been done."
It is done, it is finished, for him. It is an affair completed, ended. The Church, in the course of the 1960's, thus during the Council, acquired values that have come from outside the Church, from the liberal culture—due secoli—from two centuries of liberal culture. It is clear: these are the "rights" of man, it is religious freedom, it is ecumenism. It is Satanic.
Next the Cardinal says:
Quote: "Questo si e fatto," that is done, it is an accomplished fact. "But," he adds, "the climate is a little different, it has gotten a lot worse." "E molto peggiorato rispetto a quello che giustificava un ottimismo forse ingenue"—but now the climate is less good, "peggiorato," made worse in comparison with the time when we could have a true optimism rather unsophisticated. So, now, "Bisogna quindi cercare nuovi equilibri—now we have to look for a new balance."
He does not say that it is necessary to remove these principles, these values which come from liberal culture, but that it is necessary to try to discover a new balance. This new balance is Opus Dei. The balance of Opus Dei is an exterior of traditionalism, an exterior of piety, an exterior of religious discipline, with liberal ideas. The liberal ideas are kept. There is no question of taking away the liberal ideas. There is no question of fighting against the rights of man, against ecumenism, and against religious freedom, which is an essential right of man for sure, even if it entails bringing him an exterior disposition.
I think we have to judge all the acts of Rome nowadays in that perspective, in the perspective of Cardinal Ratzinger, since he is the spokesman: keep the liberal ideas; there is no question of changing the new fundamental principles which we acquired during the 1960's, which are now an accomplished fact for the Church. The liberal ideas, certain liberal ideas, can be a part of the vision which the Church has of the world; but all the same we have to look for a certain balance. Now for this balance, we have to hit a little at the theology of liberation, we have to hit the French bishops a little bit on the subject of the catechism, we have to give, to those who really have nostalgia for the ancient Mass, a small satisfaction, on occasion, occasionally, and look!
It is the same thing for the theology of liberation; they do not abandon the principle, for they say in their document: Quote:"There is a theology of liberation which is possible, there is a theology of liberation for the poor, which is neither more nor less than the Marxist solution of liberation. But we must not arrive at the Marxist solution of liberation."
They are inevitably full of contradiction. They cannot not be a continual contradiction. Finally, they give an impression of wanting to return to Tradition, but they do not have the will to do so; they do not want to. And finally, they accept the conclusions of all those false theologians and of all the bishops who are revolutionaries, who manage the revolution.
We find ourselves right now in that situation. It is very clear in this interview with Cardinal Ratzinger. I think that it is that outlook that should guide us in our present situation. Let us not deceive ourselves by believing that by these little braking actions that are given on the right and on the left, in the excesses of the present situation, that we are seeing a complete return to Tradition. That is not true, that is not true. They remain always liberal minds. It is always the liberals who rule Rome, and they remain liberal. But, as the Cardinal says, they have gone a bit too far, they have to find a little balance. That is of primary importance, because the more we meditate on the dependence on God, the more we meditate on dependence on Our Lord Jesus Christ, the more we have the desire to put ourselves under the gentle reign of Christ and of the Most Holy Virgin Mary. We have only one desire, and that is to see Christ and the Holy Virgin Mary reign. Now the more one thinks about that, the more horror he has—a gut horror, I would say—an instinctive horror of liberalism, because it is against the grace that we have received and particularly against the grace of the priesthood. Thus we have an abhorrence for this independence from God.
Now I will conclude with this: What is the act of the Church that truly places us in dependence upon God, in dependence upon Our Lord Jesus Christ? It is the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. There is the heart of the Church, there is the most beautiful, the deepest, the most real expression of our dependence upon God. When we kneel down before the Cross, when we kneel down before the Holy Eucharist, we profess our dependence upon God. "I can do nothing without Thee, I cannot save myself without Thee. Deign to save me. Be the physician of my soul—et sanabitur anima mea—say the word and my soul will be healed." That is what we say to Him before receiving Him, and so we have to have this conviction of our need of a remedy. We speak of this conviction in the prayer before receiving Communion: "ad medelam percipiendam—give me Thy remedy." It is propitiation. That is the propitiatory act of Our Lord renewed every day.
And it is that that the Protestants do not want any more, and it is that that the liberals do not want any more. They have made an agreement to take away this propitiation. They are now making of the Eucharist an almost purely human ceremony of sharing, of communion, of human solidarity, of Christian solidarity, if you will, and still in remembrance of Our Lord. And they do not even refuse the Real Presence: without doubt there is still a presence; they have not wanted to destroy everything. But finally it is that: it is no more the propitiatory sacrifice, the Blood of Our Lord still flows; the proof is that they have taken the cross down from all the altars and, if they have kept it, they have put it to one side. They no longer want it to be a propitiatory sacrifice. So that should be our liet motiv, our theme—we have to come back always to that-we must always put the people back under the cross, under the Sacrifice of Our Lord. It is a sacrifice. There is a sacrificial action that is brought about, and it is in the Victim that we participate. This is not the "shared bread," this is not a "sharing of the Word."
But they do not want to receive the Blood of Our Lord in order to be saved: "One can be saved by anything. He saves himself by himself, by the confidence that he has in God; because I have confidence in God, therefore I save myself." Therefore, all religions save. Supposedly, the Holy Ghost acts in all religions and so one no longer needs or wants the Church. From this comes Pentecostalism, from this comes the charismatic movement, because in them one receives the Spirit directly, without needing the hierarchy, without needing the framework that the Good Lord has imposed on us, which put us precisely into dependence. One wants no more of this dependence. The charismatic movement is still another form of independence, of Protestantism. In practice, one does not need the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, the sacraments; he takes them, it is understood, because it is the custom to take them, but he does not need them. One does not go to confession any more. All that is part of the same spirit: one no longer wants to depend on God.
Liberalism has made the pact with the independents, and this likewise proceeds to independence and to this revolt against God. This spirit of independence is truly diabolical. So we then, we, should, on the contrary, have the desire to show forth in everything, dependence on Our Lord Jesus Christ. I believe that this is the best apostolate that we could have: the apostolate of the Holy Mass and the apostolate of everything that displays our dependence upon Our Lord Jesus Christ, whether it be even by processions of the Blessed Sacrament, whether it be by acts of adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. What do I know? That all this is what the Church herself has suggested to holy souls and what shows forth on the contrary our dependence upon Our Lord Jesus Christ.
Why the struggle for the school? The stakes are such that this struggle must be kept up strenuously. You still see the liberalism which frees the states from Our Lord Jesus Christ, this liberalism of the Vatican! It is the Vatican that has asked for the independence of the states with regard to Our Lord Jesus Christ. The men in the Vatican do not have the Catholic spirit. The last concordat to be signed, that of Italy, is an obvious proof of that! The Pope and Cardinal Casaroli have congratulated each other on the separation of Church and State, and the laicization of the Italian state. Now, therefore, Christian, Catholic teaching is no longer obligatory in the schools. It was obligatory up to that point; obligatory catechism in the schools of Italy. That is finished. Likewise, independence of the Holy City in regard to Our Lord. The City of Rome is no longer a sacred city. This is evident. They have fallen under the thumb of Masonry, of all those liberal ideas—"two centuries" as Cardinal Ratzinger said—and now they are supplying water for the mill of the revolution against Our Lord Jesus Christ.
My journey during the course of the past few months, in South America, shows that, in a general way, the episcopate is rushing likewise into "liberation," without even knowing where they are going. They are obviously going towards revolution and the communist empire everywhere. Cardinal Ratzinger himself recognizes that the bishops, since the Council, have been chosen for their liberal ideas, for "progress," while now they are going to make an effort all the same to find bishops who are a little more moderate. A clear admission; it is not surprising that we have bishops like that now.
With that I think that I have said what I wanted to say to you, and given you a certain line of conduct in the present events which perhaps are going to go even faster. There will be possibly other manifestations of putting the brakes on by the Vatican; and it is very, very dangerous for us to "rally" ourselves now. No rallying, no rallying to the liberals; no rallying to the ecclesiastics who are governing in the Church now and who are liberals; there is no rallying to these people. From the moment when we rally ourselves, this rallying will be the acceptance of the liberal principles. We cannot do this, even if certain appeasements are given us on the Mass of St. Pius V—certain satisfactions, certain recognitions, certain incardinations, which could even be offered to you eventually.
A bishop could say to you, "I will incardinate you into my diocese. I will give you the Mass of St. Pius V; you will say it, but obviously, in your new parish, the New Mass will be said also. Well, you will also have to be willing to give Communion in the hand; what you need now is just a little practice. You will have to say the Mass facing the people because the people are used to that. You understand, you cannot do otherwise. And then, lastly, and above all, you have to accept the Council, do you not, with all the consequences that that represents, with its ideas." That is not possible! One cannot come to terms like that! That they give us back everything. That they give up their liberalism, that they come back to the real truth of the Church, to the faith of the Church, to the basic principles of the Church, of this total dependence of society, of families, of individuals on Our Lord Jesus Christ! At that moment when they give us the Mass of all times, very well, then, we are completely in agreement. Then there will be a perfect understanding, we will be able to be recognized, and we will have no more scruples.
But as long as one is dealing with people who have made this agreement with the Devil, with liberal ideas, we cannot have any confidence. They will string us along little by little, they will try to catch us in their traps, as long as they have not let go of these false ideas. So, from my point of view, it is not a question of doing whatever one can. Those who would have a tendency to want to accept that, will end up being recycled. We have verified it with the seminarians and those who have left us, and who have gone off to Rome and to whom beautiful promises have been made: "We will keep for you the Mass of St. Pius V." Little by little they have been lined up, they have been recycled. They had to take it or leave it. They accepted all the novelties.
We find ourselves now in a new period, in a new phase, and they would like to entice us also with certain traditional appearances, whereas in reality they put us in the margin, as they say, by the Decree! We are not concerned with this, since we are among those who do not accept the Council without reserve, who do not accept the New Mass. Therefore this is not for us! But that makes no difference, they seek and they have already succeeded in alluring some of our people, like Father Normandin of Canada, who has accepted the principle of the New Mass. By this means, he has been given the Mass of St. Pius V, he has been given a parish, so there! There are also Fathers Bleue and Le Pivain, and several others, who are lured by the bishops. The bishops are very happy to be able to have some of the priests who formerly were traditionalists and who agree to make this little contract which is moreover apparently very restrained but which at last puts them into the surroundings, in the bath, with those who have liberal ideas and who say the New Mass.
So then we have to warn our faithful strongly, so that they do not let themselves be deceived, or be captured by an exterior of traditional reform which would lead them inevitably to the adoption of liberalism and liberal ideas.
Let us confide ourselves to the Holy Virgin Mary. If there is a creature who has been dependent upon Our Lord and upon God, it is certainly the Most Holy Virgin Mary. She had that almost by nature, since she did not have original sin. Therefore let us ask her to grant us this understanding and this will so that we will not let ourselves be seduced by the sirens of the world.
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| January 12th - St. Margaret Bourgeoys |
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Posted by: Elizabeth - 12-14-2020, 12:07 AM - Forum: January
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Saint Margaret Bourgeoys
Foundress
(1620-1700)
Saint Margaret Bourgeoys was born in Troyes, France, on Good Friday, April 17, 1620. She was prepared by Divine Providence, over a period of many years, for her future mission. When she was twenty years old, Margaret saw the Blessed Virgin who looked at her during a procession, and smiled at her. From that time on, she abandoned all ornaments and amusements common to her age and entered into a sodality of the Children of Mary, of which she became the President. Ten years later, on the Feast of the Assumption the Child Jesus, in appearance about three years old, made Himself seen by her in the Sacred Host of the monstrance. He kindled in her heart bright flames of divine charity, and inspired in her a great contempt for all earthly goods, with an unquenchable thirst for souls.
In 1653, when she was thirty-three years old, Margaret Bourgeoys set sail for Canada. The Virgin said to her: Go, I will not abandon you. Four years passed before she could undertake the Christian education of children. In the meantime, her charity was lavished on all; she visited and served the sick, buried the dead, consoled the afflicted, taught catechism to the colonists. From then on, her task would be to form and direct a non-cloistered religious community dedicated to teaching. In 1658 she laid the foundations of her Congregation of Notre Dame Sisters by opening the first school of Ville-Marie (Montreal), in a stable offered by Monsieur de Maisonneuve. She soon found co-workers, whom she initiated for their work. The little schools of New France began to spring up on every hill and in every valley.
The social work of Mother Bourgeoys is no less admirable than her educational labors. Her dedication extended to the service of the many young households of those days. She took in, guided and directed the Daughters of the King, sent to be married to the colonists, inculcating in them a sense of the serious duties of a spouse and mother. She remained their counselor for long years, to whom they always turned for comfort and encouragement in the practice of virtue. The ingeniousness of Margaret became evident from her many varied projects: a workshop for young girls and married women, a vocational school for the formation of her companions in education, the Work of the Tabernacles which she founded with the recluse Jeanne Leber; a pious association for young girls.
After 47 years of labors blessed by heaven and the Blessed Virgin, Margaret Bourgeoys died, at the age of eighty, with the reputation of a soul eminent in sanctity. In a solemn ceremony at Saint Peter's in Rome on November 12, 1950, Pius XII declared her Blessed. Since then she has received the honors of canonization.
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| January 11th - St. Theodosius |
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Posted by: Elizabeth - 12-14-2020, 12:05 AM - Forum: January
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Saint Theodosius
Abbot
(423-529)
Saint Theodosius was born in Cappadocia in 423. He desired to visit the Holy Places, and on his way visited Saint Simeon Stylites to ask his counsel. Simeon perceived him amid the crowd and called him by his name: Theodosius, servant of God, you are welcome. His desire to follow Jesus Christ attracted him to the religious life. He placed himself under Longinus, a very holy hermit, who sent him to govern a monastery near Bethlehem. Unable to bring himself to command others, he fled to a cavern, where he lived in penance and prayer. His great charity, however, forbade him to refuse the charge of some disciples, who, few at first, became in time a vast number; and Theodosius built a large monastery and three churches for them.
The holy monk eventually was named by the Bishop of Jerusalem Superior of all the religious communities of Palestine. He and Saint Sabas, who had been appointed by Sallustus, the same bishop, to preside the Palestinian hermits, often consulted together on subjects of piety and edification and the means to procure the glory of God. Saint Theodosius accommodated himself so carefully to the characters of his subjects that his reproofs were loved rather than dreaded. But on one occasion he was obliged to put away from the communion of the others a religious guilty of a grave fault. Instead of humbly accepting his sentence, the monk was arrogant enough to allege to excommunicate Theodosius in revenge. Theodosius thought not of indignation, nor of his own position, but meekly submitted to this false and unjust excommunication. This so touched the heart of his disciple that he submitted at once and acknowledged his fault.
Theodosius never refused assistance to any in poverty or affliction; on some days the monks laid more than a hundred tables for those in need. In times of famine Theodosius forbade their alms to be diminished, and often miraculously multiplied the provisions. He built five hospitals, in which he lovingly served the sick, while by assiduous spiritual reading he maintained himself in perfect recollection. He successfully opposed the Eutychian heresy in Jerusalem and all of Palestine, and for this was banished by the emperor Anastasius. His exile lasted but a short time, for the emperor who sustained the heretics died soon afterwards, struck by lightning.
The holy abbot suffered a long and painful illness and refused to pray to be cured, calling it a salutary penance for his former successes. He died at the age of a hundred and six.
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| December 14th - Blessed Melanie Calvat and St. Nicasius and his Companions |
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Posted by: Elizabeth - 12-14-2020, 12:04 AM - Forum: December
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Blessed Melanie Calvat
Seeress of La Salette, Virgin
(1831-1904)
Born on November 7, 1831, in Corps, France, Françoise Melanie Calvat was the fourth of ten children born to Pierre Calvat, an honest stonemason and sawyer, and Julie Barnaud, a lightheaded woman who disgracefully mistreated Melanie. Put out of the house at the age of three, the little girl took refuge in the woods, where a beautiful little Child (the Child Jesus) visited her, calling her the sister of My Heart. He consoled and instructed her, and was her only friend throughout her childhood. At the age of three, she was stigmatized and favored with the vision of Our Lady, who promised to watch over her as Mother and Mistress. The occupation of shepherdess was imposed upon her at the tender age of six, and Melanie suffered much affliction with love and patience. 1846 found her, now fourteen years old, watching her master's cows in La Salette, located a few kilometers from Corps. This is where the Mother of God chose to appear to her and to Maximin Giraud to transmit Her Message. After the Apparition, the two children were placed as boarders in the Sisters of Providence convent in Corps, where an inquiry concerning the Apparition took place.
The life of Melanie was not a tranquil one. She entered religion in her native village of Corps at the age of twenty, but was soon exiled from France by her bishop, who arranged for her to be accompanied to Darlington, England by an English prelate. There she was sequestered in a Carmel for several years, until released from its vow of cloister by the Holy Father Pius IX, that she might be free to accomplish her mission. Melanie was able to publish the Secret, as the Virgin had commanded, only in 1872 and 1873, in Italy, with an Imprimatur of Cardinal Sforza, Archbishop of Naples, and with the approbation of Pope Pius IX. When she completed the Secret by adding an account of the Apparition from beginning to end in 1878, Pope Leon XIII, reading her narration, said, This document must be published. Included in it is the urgent appeal of Our Lady, summoning the Apostles of the Latter Times, who will have lived in contempt of the world and themselves, in silence, prayer and mortification, in chastity and union with God, in suffering and unknown to the world. She calls them to come forth, to combat, in these days of woe. The brochure was again printed in 1879, with the Imprimatur of Monsignor Zola, bishop of Lecce near Naples, who had protected and assisted Melanie in his diocese. Her life was one of constant miraculous help from Heaven amid unceasing contradictions; her soul, hidden behind a very modest exterior which only the holy consecrated souls of her time could penetrate, was one of beautiful innocence and of a sanctity far from ordinary.
The bishops of France resisted the Secret with, at times, a real fury, because its warnings as to the political ambitions of Napoleon III and the regrettable state of the clergy in general, were not to their liking. Melanie was called insane, she was calumniated, refused possession of a terrain in France willed legally to the Order of the Mother of God which she represented; refused Holy Communion at times; she was exiled from certain dioceses when she returned from Italy for a few years. Eventually, after prolonged efforts to establish the Order of the Mother of God both in Italy and in France, she again went to Italy, where she died in 1904. She had foretold: The spirit of La Salette can be transported. And when the hour has sounded, the Blessed Virgin will be able to resurrect La Salette and accomplish Her Work... The Blessed Virgin's words are not sterile like those of men... Her Work will be done. Men and devils can do nothing against Her. She will triumph. Men can resist the call of grace and Her appeal, but She can transport Her great light and show it to others. Let us await Her help and Her hour.
Martyrs
(5th century)
In the fifth century an army of Vandal barbarians from Germany, while ravaging part of Gaul, plundered the city of Rheims. Nicasius, its holy bishop, an emissary of peace, justice and charity, had foretold this calamity to his flock; for the city of Rheims, which for a long time had been docile to his word, little by little was seen by the afflicted pastor to be sinking into vice and corruption. He endeavored to waken them to penance: Weep, lament in sackcloth and ashes, unfortunate flock, for God has numbered your iniquities, and if you do not do penance, dreadful punishments are going to come upon you! But his words were unheeded.
When Saint Nicasius saw the enemy at the gates and in the streets, forgetting himself and solicitous only for his spiritual children, he went from door to door encouraging everyone to patience and constancy, and awakening in each breast the most heroic sentiments of piety and religion. By endeavoring to save the lives of his flock, he exposed himself to the sword of the infidels, who indeed slew him, while he was praying on his knees the words of a Psalm: Lord, my soul has been as though fastened to the earth; Lord, give me life, according to Your word! Florens, his deacon, and Jocond, his lector, were massacred by his side. His sister Eutropia, a virtuous and beautiful virgin, fearing she might be reserved for a fate worse than death, boldly cried out to the infidels that it was her unalterable resolution to sacrifice her life rather than her faith or her virtue. In reply, they dispatched her with their cutlasses, and continued their massacre.
Then, suddenly, a strange and terrible noise was heard in the Church of Notre-Dame, and the alarmed barbarians took flight without taking time to pillage the houses or burn the city, or even take the booty they had already amassed.
When the city's inhabitants who had fled to the mountains of the region felt it was safe to return, having seen an unexplained flame above the place of the torment and heard what seemed to be an angelic concert in that area, they went with the intention of piously burying the remains of the slain, and they found there Saint Nicasius, their bishop, his assistants, and Saint Eutropia. Many miracles occurred at their tomb.
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| Bishops Schneider and Strickland: On the Morality of Vaccines |
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Posted by: Stone - 12-13-2020, 09:19 AM - Forum: Pandemic 2020 [Spiritual]
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A number of even Novus Ordo bishops are plainly stating that Catholics cannot receive any vaccines that are derived from aborted fetal cells. [Not mentioned in the article below but who have also expressed similar sentiments are Cardinal Burke and Archbishop Viganò.]
Holy Scripture tells us "Or know you not, that your bodies are the temple of the Holy Ghost, who is in you, whom you have from God; and you are not your own?" 1 Corinthians 6:19.
How sad that, in contrast, the Conciliar SSPX has deviated from it's previous position and now advises it's faithful that they can indeed accept vaccines derived from or affiliated with aborted children. One has heard only silence from the 'False Resistance' Bishop Wililamson on the topic of vaccines derived from fetal cells- at least in his Eleison Comments publication. A search for 'vaccine' on Bishop Williamson's site nets zero results. A search for 'covid' results in only two results- neither of which deal with the topic of vaccines derived from aborted fetal cells.
As an aside, please note that in typical Bishop Schneider fashion, he draws nearly exclusively from the post-Vatican II sources. But even in this, there is much to support the stance that Catholics cannot accept vaccines derived from or tested on aborted fetal cell lines.
Again, it is very disheartening to see the SSPX promote the acceptance of such vaccines - in an act of compliance with the global elites. One cannot help but presume that Pope Francis would approve of their position. And that says it all. - The Catacombs
Quote:Bishops Schneider, Strickland: On the Morality of Vaccines
Written by +Athanasius Schneider
The Remnant
Editor's Intro: With most of the world now facing the unsettling prospect of being forced to take a vaccination against a virus with a 99.5 percent recovery rate, we are truly grateful to Bishop Athanasius Schneider and Bishop Joseph Strickland for issuing this important new statement on the moral illicitness of vaccines derived from the fetal cell lines of aborted fetuses.
Not all the vaccine candidates include fetal cells, but it is important for Christians everywhere to understand the differences and to become familiar with the moral ramification of accepting vaccines which are the work of those who evidently have no problem violating the sanctity of life in this ghoulish manner.
Please note that this statement is dated December 12, 2020, the liturgical memorial of Our Lady of Guadalupe, Patroness of the Unborn. May she intercede for us to that we may have the strength to know and understand our duty as Christians to uphold the moral law in these troubling and indeed Christophobic times.
On the moral illicitness of the use of vaccines made from cells derived from aborted human fetuses
In recent weeks, news agencies and various information sources have reported that, in response to the Covid-19 emergency, some countries have produced vaccines using cell lines from aborted human fetuses. In other countries, such vaccines are being planned.
A growing chorus of churchmen (bishops’ conferences, individual bishops, and priests) has said that, in the event that no alternative vaccine using ethically licit substances is available, it would be morally permissible for Catholics to receive vaccines made from the cell lines of aborted babies. Supporters of this position invoke two documents of the Holy See: the first, from the Pontifical Academy for Life, is titled, “Moral reflections on vaccines prepared from cells derived from aborted human fetuses” and was issued on June 9, 2005; the second, an Instruction from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, is titled, “Dignitas Personae, on certain bioethical questions” and was issued on September 8, 2008. Both of these documents allow for the use of such vaccines in exceptional cases and for a limited time, on the basis of what in moral theology is called remote, passive, material cooperation with evil. The aforementioned documents assert that Catholics who use such vaccines at the same time have “the duty to make known their disagreement and to ask that their healthcare system make other types of vaccines available.”
In the case of vaccines made from the cell lines of aborted human fetuses, we see a clear contradiction between the Catholic doctrine to categorically, and beyond the shadow of any doubt, reject abortion in all cases as a grave moral evil that cries out to heaven for vengeance (see Catechism of the Catholic Church n. 2268, n. 2270), and the practice of regarding vaccines derived from aborted fetal cell lines as morally acceptable in exceptional cases of “urgent need” — on the grounds of remote, passive, material cooperation. To argue that such vaccines can be morally licit if there is no alternative is in itself contradictory and cannot be acceptable for Catholics.
One ought to recall the following words of Pope John Paul II regarding the dignity of unborn human life: “The inviolability of the person which is a reflection of the absolute inviolability of God, finds its primary and fundamental expression in the inviolability of human life. Above all, the common outcry, which is justly made on behalf of human rights — for example, the right to health, to home, to work, to family, to culture — is false and illusory if the right to life, the most basic and fundamental right and the condition for all other personal rights, is not defended with maximum determination.” (Christifideles Laici, 38). Using vaccines made from the cells of murdered unborn children contradicts a “maximum determination” to defend unborn life.
The theological principle of material cooperation is certainly valid and may be applied to a whole host of cases (e.g. in paying taxes, the use of products made from slave labor, and so on). However, this principle can hardly be applied to the case of vaccines made from fetal cell lines, because those who knowingly and voluntarily receive such vaccines enter into a kind of concatenation, albeit very remote, with the process of the abortion industry. The crime of abortion is so monstrous that any kind of concatenation with this crime, even a very remote one, is immoral and cannot be accepted under any circumstances by a Catholic once he has become fully aware of it. One who uses these vaccines must realize that his body is benefitting from the “fruits” (although steps removed through a series of chemical processes) of one of mankind’s greatest crimes.
Any link to the abortion process, even the most remote and implicit, will cast a shadow over the Church’s duty to bear unwavering witness to the truth that abortion must be utterly rejected. The ends cannot justify the means. We are living through one of the worst genocides known to man. Millions upon millions of babies across the world have been slaughtered in their mother’s womb, and day after day this hidden genocide continues through the abortion industry, biomedical research and fetal technology, and a push by governments and international bodies to promote such vaccines as one of their goals. Now is not the time for Catholics to yield; to do so would be grossly irresponsible. The acceptance of these vaccines by Catholics, on the grounds that they involve only a “remote, passive and material cooperation” with evil, would play into the hands of the Church’s enemies and weaken her as the last stronghold against the evil of abortion.
What else can a vaccine derived from fetal cell lines be other than a violation of the God-given Order of Creation? For it is based on a serious violation of this Order through the murder of an unborn child. Had this child not been denied the right to life, had his cells (which have been further cultivated several times in the lab) not been made available for the production of a vaccine, they could not be marketed. We therefore have here a double violation of God’s holy Order: on the one hand, through the abortion itself, and on the other hand, through the heinous business of trafficking and marketing the remains of aborted children. Yet, this double disregard for the divine Order of Creation can never be justified, not even on the grounds of preserving the health of a person or society through such vaccines. Our society has created a substitute religion: health has been made the highest good, a substitute god to whom sacrifices must be offered — in this case, through a vaccine based on the death of another human life.
In examining the ethical questions surrounding vaccines, we have to ask ourselves: How and why did all of this become possible? Was there truly no alternative? Why did murder-based technology emerge in medicine, whose purpose is instead to bring life and health? Bio-medical research that exploits the innocent unborn and uses their bodies as “raw material” for the purpose of vaccines seems more akin to cannibalism than medicine. We also ought to consider that, for some in the bio-medical industry, the cell lines of unborn children are a “product,” the abortionist and vaccine manufacturer are the “supplier,” and the recipients of the vaccine are “consumers.” Technology based on murder is rooted in hopelessness and ends in despair. We must resist the myth that “there is no alternative.” On the contrary, we must proceed with the hope and conviction that alternatives exist, and that human ingenuity, with the help of God, can discover them. This is the only way to pass from darkness to light, and from death to life.
The Lord said that in the end times even the elect will be seduced (cf. Mk. 13:22). Today, the entire Church and all Catholic faithful must urgently seek to be strengthened in the doctrine and practice of the faith. In confronting the evil of abortion, more than ever Catholics must “abstain from all appearance of evil” (1 Thess. 5:22). Bodily health is not an absolute value. Obedience to the law of God and the eternal salvation of the souls must be given primacy. Vaccines derived from the cells of cruelly murdered unborn children are clearly apocalyptic in character and may possibly foreshadow the mark of the beast (see Rev. 13:16).
Some churchmen in our day reassure the faithful by affirming that receiving a Covid-19 vaccine derived from the cell lines of an aborted child is morally licit if an alternative is not available. They justify their assertion on the basis of “material and remote cooperation” with evil. Such affirmations are extremely anti-pastoral and counterproductive, especially when one considers the increasingly apocalyptic character of the abortion industry, and the inhuman nature of some biomedical research and embryonic technology. Now more than ever, Catholics categorically cannot encourage and promote the sin of abortion, even in the slightest, by accepting these vaccines. Therefore, as Successors of the Apostles and Shepherds responsible for the eternal salvation of souls, we consider it impossible to be silent and maintain an ambiguous attitude regarding our duty to resist with “maximum of determination” (Pope John Paul II) against the “unspeakable crime” of abortion (II Vatican Council, Gaudium et Spes, 51).
This statement was written at the advice and counsel of doctors and scientists from various countries. A substantial contribution also came from the laity: from grandmothers, grandfathers, fathers and mothers of families, and from young people. All of those consulted — independent of age, nationality and profession — unanimously and almost instinctively rejected the idea of a vaccine derived from the cell lines of aborted children. Furthermore, they considered the justification offered for using such vaccines (i.e. “material remote cooperation”) as weak and unsuitable. This is comforting and, at the same time, very revealing: their unanimous response is a further demonstration of the strength of reason and the sensus fidei.
More than ever, we need the spirit of the confessors and martyrs who avoided the slightest suspicion of collaboration with the evil of their own age. The Word of God says: “Be simple as children of God without reproach in the midst of a depraved and perverse generation, in which you must shine like lights in the world” (Phil. 2, 15).
December 12, 2020, Memorial of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Guadalupe
Cardinal Janis Pujats, Metropolitan archbishop emeritus of Riga
+ Tomash Peta, Metropolitan archbishop of the archdiocese of Saint Mary in Astana
+ Jan Pawel Lenga, Archbishop/bishop emeritus of Karaganda
+ Joseph E. Strickland, Bishop of Tyler (USA)
+ Athanasius Schneider, Auxiliary bishop of the archdiocese of Saint Mary in Astana
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| Which COVID-19 vaccines are connected to abortion? |
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Posted by: Stone - 12-13-2020, 08:36 AM - Forum: Pandemic 2020 [Spiritual]
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Which COVID-19 vaccines are connected to abortion?
'It must be clear that it is never morally justified to develop a vaccine through the use of the cell lines of aborted fetuses,' Cardinal Raymond Burke has said.
December 11, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) – As various vaccines begin to be rolled out across the world, in apparent response to COVID-19, questions remain about the development and safety of many of the vaccines.
LifeSiteNews has compiled this short guide to some of the most prominent vaccines being offered and/or developed, sourcing material from our own reports and LifeSite’s dedicated page to COVID-19 vaccines.
The summary examines the development and testing of the vaccines from many angles: in relation to abortion; concerns about the scientific structure and the health effects of the vaccine; as well as responses from bishops and pro-life activists to the vaccines. Five vaccines connected to abortion, and two seemingly without any connection to abortion, are examined.
Two helpful charts can also be found, detailing which vaccines use cell lines from aborted babies, and at what stage the cell lines are used.
Cardinal Raymond Burke, former Prefect of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura, has previously spoken out against vaccines using aborted babies: “it must be clear that it is never morally justified to develop a vaccine through the use of the cell lines of aborted fetuses. The thought of the introduction of such a vaccine into one’s body is rightly abhorrent.”
Aside from any connection to abortion, LifeSiteNews notes the comments of a number of experts who state that there is no need for mass vaccinations in order to end the coronavirus crisis. Dr. Michael Yeadon, who “spent over 30 years leading new [allergy and respiratory] medicines research in some of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies,” and retired from Pfizer with “the most senior research position in this field,” wrote in Ocober:
Quote:There is absolutely no need for vaccines to extinguish the pandemic. I’ve never heard such nonsense talked about vaccines. You do not vaccinate people who aren’t at risk from a disease. You also don’t set about planning to vaccinate millions of fit and healthy people with a vaccine that hasn’t been extensively tested on human subjects.
In an interview published this week Dr. Theresa Deisher (Ph.D. in Molecular and Cellular Physiology from Stamford University) stated “this virus to date has less than a 0.03% fatality rate and most of those people, I believe it's 92% or above, have other health problems; we're making a vaccine at warp speed for a virus that doesn't look like it's going to need a vaccine.”
In the same interview Deisher confirmed that in her opinion a rational person would be on solid ground to eschew any COVID-19 vaccine.
Pfizer vaccine – connected to abortion
Abortion link: The Pfizer vaccine is not developed using cell lines from aborted babies, but, “[o]ne of the confirmatory lab tests on the vaccine did sadly involve an old foetal cell-line.” The Children of God for Life organization notes that the Pfizer vaccine is tested using the HEK 293 cell line, which is derived from kidney tissue taken from a healthy baby who was aborted in the Netherlands in the 1970s.
Concerns about the structure of the vaccine: The Pfizer vaccine uses mRNA technology, a technology so novel that it has yet to be approved for use by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The method of inserting the mRNA into the patient’s cells intact, Lipid Nanoparticles (LNP’s), is not certified, as Moderna (which also uses mRNA) have stated that they cannot be sure their LNP’s will not have adverse effects.
The vaccine also has to be kept at unprecedentedly cold temperatures, -70°C (-94°F) – nearly twice as cold as the North Pole’s average temperature in the winter.
Safety concerns, side effects, and trial results: As mentioned, Pfizer’s vaccine uses extremely novel technology, which has never before been approved.
Despite Pfizer’s claims of 90% safety, reports swiftly emerged showing that vaccine trial volunteers experienced “severe” side effects. Participants suffered headaches, fevers, and hangover-like symptoms.
A U.K. government warning for the vaccine stated that the vaccine should not be used by pregnant or breast-feeding mothers and children, and added that it was unaware of what effect the vaccine would have on fertility. Women should avoid becoming pregnant for two months after the vaccine, according to the document.
Dr. Michael Yeadon, former Vice President of Pfizer, co-authored a letter to the European Medicine Agency, warning that the vaccine may prevent the safe development of placentas in pregnant women, resulting in “vaccinated women essentially becoming infertile.”
Pfizer is also free from indemnity in the U.K. and in the U.S.
Children’s Health Defense noted in an article that earlier this year “the U.S. quietly pushed through Federal regulations giving coronavirus vaccine makers full immunity from liability.” (Vaccine manufacturers in the U.S. already cannot be sued if their products injure or kill people thanks to a little-known law from the 1980s.)
After the first day of Pfizer vaccines being administered in the U.K., two people had allergic reactions, prompting the warning that people with a history of strong allergic reactions should not take it.
The U.S. FDA has warned of many serious side effects from any COVID vaccine, including heart attacks, strokes, and anaphylactic shock.
Moderna vaccine – connected to abortion
Abortion link: The Moderna vaccine is also heavily connected to abortion. Children of God for Life compiled research to show that Moderna “extensively” uses the “aborted fetal cell line HEK-293” in the “fundamental design of mRNA technology, their Spike protein and in the research, development, production and testing.” The proteins used in the vaccine itself and the mRNA “were built on technology that extensively used aborted fetal cells, rendering the vaccine absolutely immoral from start to finish.”
Concerns about the structure of the vaccine: The Moderna vaccine uses mRNA technology, a technology so novel that it has yet to be approved for use by the FDA. The method of inserting the mRNA into the patient’s cells intact, Lipid Nanoparticles (LNP’s), is not certified, and Moderna have stated that they cannot be sure their LNP’s will not have adverse effects.
Safety concerns, side effects, and trial results: Concerns remain about the structure of the vaccine, since it uses such novel technology.
Moderna has admitted that the vaccine will cause at least mild or moderate side effects. It also stopped the testing of its highest dose of vaccine, due to the number of reports of severe reactions.
Animal testing was skipped altogether. Twenty percent of people receiving the high dose in trials needed hospitalization; only 45 people were tested, and they were specifically chosen for being exceptionally healthy and fit.
A priest involved in the final phase of testing the vaccine, died unexpectedly in his home some weeks after his second jab, although it is unclear if his death was due to the vaccine.
The U.S. FDA has warned of many serious side effects from any COVID vaccine, including heart attacks, strokes, and anaphylactic shock.
Father Robert Altier warned about the dangers of Moderna’s vaccine changing the RNA in one’s body, calling it “heinous” and “evil.” Bishop Strickland also warned people via Twitter against the Moderna vaccine, saying that it is not “morally produced,” urging people to reject it.
Oxford/AstraZeneca – connected to abortion
Abortion link: The Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine has been developed from the cell lines of an aborted baby, the cell line HEK-293. It is also uses the fetal cell line in design and testing.
Structure of the vaccine: It uses viral vectors, which grow antigens to COVID-19 in the persons cells. The viral vectors are made using fetal cell lines from aborted babies to grow these vectors.
Safety concerns, side effects, and trial results: The vaccine saw “adverse effects” in 60% of recipients in its early phase trial.
The vaccine trials were previously put on hold in September for several weeks due to a severe adverse reaction from a volunteer.
A volunteer in the vaccine trials in Brazil died in October: reports are conflicting as to whether he died due to complications from the vaccine.
The U.S. FDA has warned of many serious side effects from any COVID vaccine, including heart attacks, strokes, and anaphylactic shock.
Johnson and Johnson/ Janssen – connected to abortion
Abortion link: J&J uses the fetal cell line PER.C6 in the design, development, and testing of the vaccine. The PER.C6 fetal cell line was derived from retinal tissue taken from an 18-week-old baby boy who was aborted in the Netherlands in 1985 and later converted into a fetal cell line in 1995. The cell line is owned by Janssen.
Structure of the vaccine: The J&J vaccine uses an adenoviral vector, a “genetically modified virus that leads the body to produce a protein to which the immune system then reacts.”
Safety concerns, side effects, and trial results: Trials for the vaccine were placed on hold after a participant developed a mystery illness. The number of participants in the trial has now been dropped from 60,000 to 40,000.
The company is in phase 3 of trials and aims to file for approval for the vaccine in February.
Children of God for Life notes that there are also considerable health risks contained in the fetal cell line.
As with other vaccines, the U.S. FDA has warned of many serious side effects from any COVID vaccine, including heart attacks, strokes, and anaphylactic shock.
Sanofi Pasteur & Translate Bio – connected to abortion
Abortion link: Recent research by the Charlotte Lozier Institute has shown that the mRNA vaccine, made in a partnership with Sanofi and Translate Bio, was tested on aborted fetal cell line HEK-293.
Structure of the vaccine: The vaccine uses mRNA technology, in the style of both Pfizer and Moderna. Moderna warned that they cannot be sure their LNP’s will not have adverse effects.
Safety concerns, side effects, and trial results: The joint vaccine has currently finished pre-clinical studies, which are reportedly favorable. Further stages of testing have yet to be conducted.
Sanofi Pasteur & GSK – seemingly free from abortion connection
Abortion link: Unlike the mRNA vaccine developed by Sanofi, it seems that the DNA based vaccine is produced without a link to abortion so far.
Structure of the vaccine: The DNA vaccine is made using DNA of the baculovirus expression platform, with Sanofi cultivating and developing the vaccine using the Sf9 cell line from the fall armyworm.
Safety concerns, side effects and trial results: The vaccine is not yet at phase 3 of its trials and results have not been sufficient, meaning that the vaccine will likely not be ready until late 2021.
A conflict of interest could well exist with Sir Patrick Vallance, chief scientific advisor to the U.K. government. GSK has been contracted by the U.K. to make COVID-19 vaccines, but Vallance is the former president of the company and has shares in it worth £600,000.
In a July debate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., nephew of former U.S. president John F. Kennedy and an American environmental attorney and author, highlighted both Sanofi and GSK as being among several vaccine producers with a record of incurring criminal penalties for their products.
Kennedy noted that four of the leading developers of coronavirus vaccines, Glaxo, Sanofi, Pfizer, Merck, are “convicted serial felon[s].”
“In the past 10 years, just in the last decade, those companies have paid 35 billion dollars in criminal penalties, damages, fines, for lying to doctors, for defrauding science, for falsifying science, for killing hundreds of thousands of Americans knowingly,” Kennedy said during the debate.
“It requires a cognitive dissonance for people who understand the criminal corporate cultures of these four companies to believe that they’re doing this in every other product that they have, but they’re not doing it with vaccines.”
Novavax – seemingly free from abortion connection
Abortion link: The Novavax vaccine is not produced, developed, or tested on fetal cell lines, and does not have a link to abortion.
Structure of the vaccine: It is made using an invertebrate cell line Sf9 to produce protein nanoparticle antigens that make its vaccine work.
Safety concerns, side effects and trial results: Unlike many of the other vaccines, Novavax has conducted animal studies, which demonstrated an effective combatting of COVID-19.
The vaccine is currently in phase 3 trials, and results are expected in early 2021.
LifeSiteNews has produced an extensive COVID-19 vaccines resources page. View it here.
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| Advent Hymn - Creator Alme Siderum |
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Posted by: Stone - 12-13-2020, 08:24 AM - Forum: Advent
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Creator Alme Siderum
Creator Alme Siderum (Creator, maker of the stars) is a chant hymn for the First Sunday of Advent. The hymn is based on the 7th century hymn Conditor alme siderum, which underwent heavy revision in 1632 by Pope Urban VIII to fit the meters of classical Latin. Only one line of the original remained in the new version sung here.
Creator Alme Siderum is in the Liber Usualis, the book that contains the Gregorian chant for all the Masses of the year as well as the Divine Office. (Please note: not even the Liber Usualis was spared by the progressivists, as it was revised in the '50s and '60s to fit in with liturgical “reforms”.)
The hymn pleads for the Maker of the stars to hear our prayers and to defend us from the enemy with the weapons of heavenly grace.
Creator Alme Siderum is interpreted here by the Czech choir, Schola Gregoriana Pragensis.
Lyrics
Latin lyrics
1. Creator alme siderum,
Aeterna lux credentium,
Jesu Redemptor omnium,
Intende votis supplicum.
2. Qui daemonis ne fraudibus,
Periret orbis, impetu,
Amoris actus, languidi,
Mundi medela factus es.
3. Commune qui mundi nefas,
Ut expiares; ad crucem,
E Virginis sacrario,
Intacta prodis victima.
4. Cujus potestas gloriae,
Nomenque cum primum sonat,
Et coelites et inferi,
Tremente curvantur genu.
5. Te deprecamur ultimae,
Magnum diei Judicem,
Armis supremae gratiae,
Defende nos ab hostibus.
6. Virtus, honor, laus, gloria,
Deo Patri cum Filio,
Sancto simul Paraclito,
In saeculorum saecula.
English lyrics
1. Creator, maker of the universe of stars,
Eternal light of the faithful,
Jesus Redeemer of all,
Hear the prayers of Thy supplicants.
2. Thou who, to avoid that the deceits of the Devil
Should destroy the entire universe,
Moved by an act of love,
Became the healer of the ailing world.
3. To expiate the sins of the world,
On the Cross,
Thou came from the Virgin's womb,
As a spotless Victim.
4. When Thy glorious power,
And name are heard,
The inhabitants of Heaven and Hell,
Trembling bend their knees.
5. We beseech Thee, finally,
Great Judge of the Last Day,
With the weapons of heavenly grace,
Defend us from our enemies.
6. Power, honor, praise and glory,
To the Father and to the Son,
And to the Holy Paraclete,
For ever and ever.
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| ‘You will own nothing, and you will be happy’ |
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Posted by: Stone - 12-13-2020, 08:11 AM - Forum: Great Reset
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‘You will own nothing, and you will be happy’: Warnings of ‘Orwellian’ Great Reset
Sky News Australia | 13/12/2020
8min Video Here
Brief Excerpt:
A terrifying coalition of big business and big tech are so confident and brazen they are promising the public “you will own nothing, and you will be happy” in an advertising campaign for a global reset, according to Sky News host Rowan Dean. “What they should have added is ‘we the very rich will own everything and be even happier’," he said. The Great Reset is a proposal set out by the World Economic Forum for a new globalised fiscal system which would allow the world to effectively tackle the so-called climate crisis. Mr Dean said the plan intends to use the “tools of oppression” implemented during the pandemic, such as lockdowns and forced business closures as well as other measures destroying private property rights, to combat the coronavirus to achieve climate outcomes. “I've spoken before about the insidious phrase Build Back Better which sounds like common sense but is in fact just one of several slogans for the Great reset, another being the Orwellian phrase the Fourth Industrial Revolution”. “This is as serious and as dangerous a threat to our prosperity and freedom as we have faced in decades." Mr Dean warned viewers to think again if they believed this was just “crazy old Rowan with his conspiracy theories”. “This garbage is already deeply embedded into our state and federal governments.”
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| Third Sunday of Advent [Gaudete Sunday] |
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Posted by: Stone - 12-13-2020, 06:42 AM - Forum: Advent
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THIRD SUNDAY IN ADVENT.
Taken from Fr. Leonard Goffine's Explanations of the Epistles and Gospels for the Sundays, Holydays throughout the Ecclesiastical Year, 1880
On this Sunday again, the Church calls on us to rejoice in the Advent of the Redeemer, and at the Introit sings: Rejoice in the Lord always; again I say, rejoice. Let your modesty be known to all men: for the Lord is nigh. Be nothing solicitous; but in every thing by prayer let your requests be made known to God. (Phil. IV.) Lord, thou hast blessed thy land; thou hast turned away the captivity of Jacob. (Ps. LXXXIV.)
PRAYER OF THE CHURCH. Incline Thine ear, O Lord, we beseech Thee, unto our prayers: and enlighten the darkness of our mind by The grace of thy visitation.
EPISTLE. (Phil. IV. 4— 7.) Brethren, rejoice in the Lord always; again I say, rejoice. Let your modesty be known to all men. The Lord is nigh. Be nothing solicitous; but in everything, by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your petitions be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasseth all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord.
What is meant by "rejoicing in the Lord?"
By "rejoicing in the Lord" is meant rejoicing in the grace of the true faith we have received, in the hope of obtaining eternal happiness; rejoicing in the protection of the most High under which we stand; and in the persecution for justice's sake in which Christ Himself exhorts us to rejoice, and in which the Apostle Paul gloried. (II Cor. VII. 4.)
What else does St. Paul teach in this epistle?
He exhorts us to give all a good example by a modest and edifying life, to which we should be directed by the remembrance of God's presence and His coming to judgment; (Chrysostom. 33, in Joann.) he warns us against solicitude about temporal affairs, advising us to cast our care on God, who will never abandon us in our needs, if we entreat Him with confidence and humility.
In what does “the peace of God" consist?
It consists in a good conscience, (Ambrose) in which St. Paul gloried and rejoiced beyond measure.(II. Cor. I. 12.) This peace of the soul sustained all the martyrs, and consoled many others who suffered for justice's sake. Thus St. Tibertius said to the tyrant: “We count all pain as naught, for our conscience is at peace.” There cannot be imagined a greater joy than that which proceeds from the peace of a good conscience. It must be experienced to be understood.
ASPIRATION. The peace of God, that surpasseth all understanding, preserve our hearts in Christ Jesus. Amen.
COMFORT AND RELIEF IN SORROW.
“Is any one troubled, let him pray."(James. V. 13.)
There is no greater or more powerful comfort in sorrow than in humble and confiding prayer, to complain to God of our wants and cares, as did the sorrowful Anna, mother of the prophet Samuel, (I. Kings X.) and the chaste Susanna when she was falsely accused of adultery and sentenced to death. (Dan. XIII. 35) the pious King Ezechias complained in prayer of the severe oppression with which he was threatened by Senacherib. (IV. Kings XIX. 14.) So also King Josaphat made his trouble known to God only, saying: But as we know not what to do. we can only turn our eyes on Thee. (II. Paralip. XX. 12.) They all received aid and comfort from God. Are you sad and in trouble? Lift up your soul with David and say: To Thee I have lifted up my eyes, who dwellest in heaven. Behold as the eyes of servants are on the hands of their masters, as the eyes of the handmaid are on the hands of her mistress: so are our eyes unto the Lord our God, until He shall have mercy on us. (Ps. (XXII. 1 — 3].) Give joy to the soul of Thy servant, for to Thee, O Lord, I have lifted up my soul. (Ps.LXXXV. 4.)
GOSPEL. (John I. 19-28.) At that time the Jews sent from Jerusalem priests and Levites to John, to ask him, Who art thou? And he confessed, and did not deny; and he confessed: I am not the Christ. And they asked him, What then? Art thou Elias? And he said: I am not. Art thou the prophet? And he answered, No. They said therefore unto him. Who art thou, that we may give an answer to them that sent us? what sayst thou of thyself? He said, I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, Make straight the way of the Lord, as said the prophet Isaias. And they that were sent were of the Pharisees. And they asked him, and said to him: Why then dost thou baptize, if thou be not Christ, nor Elias, nor the prophet? John answered them, saying: I baptize with water: but there hath stood one in the midst of you, whom you know not: the same is he that shall come after me, who is preferred before me, the latchet of whose shoe I am not worthy to loose. These things were done in Bethania beyond the Jordan, where John was baptizing.
Why did the Jews send messengers to St. John to ask him who he was?
Partly because of their curiosity, when they saw St. John leading such a pure, angelic, and penitential life; partly, as St. Chrysostom says, out of envy, because St. John preached with such spiritual force, baptized and exhorted the people to penance, that the inhabitants of Jerusalem came to him in great numbers: partly, and principally, they were impelled by the providence of God to demand publicly of St. John, if he were the Messiah, and thus be directed to Christ, that they might be compelled to acknowledge Him as the Messiah, or have no excuse for rejecting Him.
Why did the Jews ask St. John, if he were not Elias or the prophet?
The Jews falsely believed that the Redeemer was to come into this world but once, then with great glory, and that Elias or one of the old prophets would come before Him, to prepare His way, as (Malachias IV. 5) had prophesied of St. John: so when St. John said of himself that he was not the Messiah, they asked him, if he Were not then Elias or one of the prophets. But Elias, who was taken alive from this world in a fiery chariot, will not reappear until just before the second coming of Christ.
Why did John saw he was not Elias or the Prophet?
Because he was not Elias, and, in reality, not a prophet in the Jewish sense of the word, but more than a prophet, because he announced that Christ had come, and pointed Him out.
Why does St. John call himself "the voice of one crying in the wilderness”?
Because in his humility, he desired to acknowledge that he was only an instrument through which the Redeemer announced to the abandoned and hopeless Jews, the consolation of the Messiah, exhorting them to bear worthy fruits of penance.
How do we hear worthy fruits of penance?
We bear fruits of penance, when after our conversion, we serve God and justice with the same zeal with which we previously served the devil and iniquity; when we love God as fervently as we once loved the flesh, — that is, the desires of the flesh, — and the pleasures of the world; when we give our members to justice as we once gave them to malice and impurity, (Rom. IV. 19) when the mouth that formerly uttered improprieties, when the ears that listened to detraction or evil speech, when the eyes that looked curiously upon improper objects, now rejoice in the utterance of words pleasing to God, to hear and to see things dear to Him; when the appetite that was given to the luxury of eating and drinking, now abstains; when the hands give back what they have stolen; in a word, when we put off the old man, who was corrupted, and put on the new man, who is created in justice and holiness of truth. (Ephes. IV. 22—24.)
What was the baptism administered by John, and what were its effects?
The baptism administered by John was only a baptism of penance for forgiveness of sins, fluke III. 3.) The ignorant Jews not considering the greatness of their transgressions, St. John came exhorting them to acknowledge their sins, and do penance for them; that being converted, and truly contrite, they might seek after their Redeemer, and thus obtain remission of their offences. We must then conclude, that St. John's baptism was only a ceremony or initiation, by which the Jews enrolled themselves as his disciples to do penance, as a preparation for the remission of sin by means of the second baptism, viz., of Jesus Christ.
What else can be learned from this gospel?
We learn from it to be always sincere, especially at the tribunal of penance, and to practice the necessary virtue of humility, by which, in reply to the questions of the Jews, St. John confessed the truth openly and without reserve, as shown by the words: The latchet of whose shoe I am not worthy to loose, as the lowest of Christ's servants, giving us an example of humility and sincerity, which should induce us always to speak the truth, and not only not to seek honor, but to give to God all the honor shown us by man.
Have you not far more reason than John, who was such a great saint, to esteem yourself but little, and to humble yourself before God and man? "My son," says Tobias, (IV. 14.) "never suffer pride to reign in thy mind, or in thy words: for from it all perdition took its beginning."
ASPIRATION. O Lord, banish from my heart all envy, jealousy and pride. Grant me instead, to know myself and Thee, that by the knowledge of my nothingness. Miseries, and vices, I may always remain unworthy in my own eyes, and that by the contemplation of Thy infinite perfections, I may seek to prize Thee above all, to love and to glorify Thee, and practice charity towards my neighbor. Amen.
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| December 13th - St. Lucy of Syracuse |
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Posted by: Elizabeth - 12-13-2020, 01:19 AM - Forum: December
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Saint Lucy of Syracuse
Virgin and Martyr
(† 303)
Saint Lucy was a young Christian maiden of Syracuse in Sicily. She had already offered her virginity to God and refused to marry, when her mother pressed her to accept the offer of a young pagan. The mother was afflicted afterwards for several years by an issue of blood, and all human remedies were ineffectual. Lucy reminded her mother that a woman in the Gospel, suffering from the same disorder, had been healed by the divine power. They determined to make a journey to Catania, a port of Sicily, where the tomb of Saint Agatha, martyred in 251, was already a site of pilgrimage. Saint Agatha, Lucy said, stands ever in the sight of Him for whom she died. Only touch her sepulchre with faith, and you will be healed. The Saint of Catania had already saved that city, when Mount Etna had erupted the year after her martyrdom: some frightened pagans, seeing a course of lava descending directly toward the city, had uncovered her tomb, and at once it had stopped.
Saint Lucy and her mother spent an entire night praying by the tomb, until, overcome by weariness, both fell asleep. Saint Agatha appeared in vision to Saint Lucy, and addressing her sister in the faith, foretold her mother's recovery and Lucy's future martyrdom: You will soon be the glory of Syracuse, as I am of Catania. At that instant the cure was effected; and in her gratitude the mother allowed her daughter to distribute her wealth among the poor, and to conserve her virginity.
The young man who had sought her hand in marriage denounced her as a Christian during the persecution of Diocletian, but Our Lord, by a special miracle, saved from outrage this virgin He had chosen for His own. The executioners who would have taken her to a house of ill fame were unable to move her. The exasperated prefect gave orders to attach her by cords to harnessed bulls, but the bulls, too, did not succeed, and he accused her of being a magician. How can you, a feeble woman, triumph over a thousand men? She replied, Bring ten thousand, and they will not be able to combat against God! A fire kindled around her did her no harm, though she was covered with resin and oil. When a sword was plunged into her heart, the promise made at the tomb of Saint Agatha was fulfilled. Saint Lucy died, predicting peace for the Church.
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| Advent Hymn - Rorate Coeli Desuper |
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Posted by: Stone - 12-12-2020, 07:56 PM - Forum: Advent
- Replies (1)
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Advent Hymn: Rorate Coeli Desuper
Roráte caéli désuper,
et núbes plúant jústum.
Drop down ye heavens, from above,
and let the skies pour down righteousness:
Ne irascáris Dómine,
ne ultra memíneris iniquitátis:
ecce cívitas Sáncti fácta est desérta:
Síon desérta fácta est:
Jerúsalem desoláta est:
dómus sanctificatiónis túæ et glóriæ túæ,
ubi laudavérunt te pátres nóstri.
Be not wroth very sore, O Lord,
neither remember iniquity for ever:
the holy cities are a wilderness,
Sion is a wilderness,
Jerusalem a desolation:
our holy and our beautiful house,
where our fathers praised thee.
Peccávimus, et fácti súmus tamquam immúndus nos,
et cecídimus quasi fólium univérsi:
et iniquitátes nóstræ quasi véntus abstulérunt nos:
abscondísti faciem túam a nóbis,
et allisísti nos in mánu iniquitátis nóstræ.
We have sinned, and are as an unclean thing,
and we all do fade as a leaf:
and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away;
thou hast hid thy face from us:
and hast consumed us, because of our iniquities.
Víde Dómine afflictiónem pópuli túi,
et mítte quem missúrus es:
emítte Agnum dominatórem térræ,
de Pétra desérti ad móntem fíliæ Síon:
ut áuferat ípse júgum captivitátis nóstræ.
Behold, O Lord, the affliction of thy people
and send forth Him who is to come
send forth the Lamb, the ruler of the earth from Petra of the desert to the mount of the daughter of Sion
that He may take away the yoke of our captivity
'
Ye are my witnesses, saith the Lord,
and my servant whom I have chosen;
that ye may know me and believe me:
I, even I, am the Lord, and beside me there is no Savior:
and there is none that can deliver out of my hand.
Consolámini, consolámini, pópule méus:
cito véniet sálus túa:
quare mæróre consúmeris,
quia innovávit te dólor?
Salvábo te, nóli timére,
égo enim sum Dóminus Déus túus,
Sánctus Israël, Redémptor túus.
Comfort ye, comfort ye, my people,
my salvation shall not tarry:
why wilt thou waste away in sadness?
why hath sorrow seized thee?
Fear not, for I will save thee:
for I am the Lord thy God,
the Holy One of Israel, thy Redeemer.
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